Category: Reflections and Discourse
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Beyond Books – The Ultimate Heresy of the Upanishads
तत्रापरा ऋग्वेदो यजुर्वेदः सामवेदोऽथर्ववेदः शिक्षा कल्पो व्याकरणं निरुक्तं छन्दो ज्योतिषमिति। अथ परा यया तदक्षरमधिगम्यते ॥ “Of these, the Aparā (Lower Knowledge) is the Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva Vedas, along with rituals (Kalpa) and grammar… Now, the Parā (Higher Knowledge) is that by which the Immutable (Akṣara) is attained.” The Muṇḍaka Upanishad delivers one of
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What Remains When Nothing Remains
Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, “Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.” I never fully understood the profound truth of these words until I began reflecting on the different types of last conversations that mark the end of relationships. In recent weeks, I’ve experienced two such conversations—both final, both conclusive,
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Life Lessons from Axon Pathfinding
It was winter 2024. I was a few months into my PhD at the National Brain Research Centre, Gurgaon, still finding my footing in the academic world. Between long hours in the course-work classes, lab rotations and evenings spent poring over research papers, I found moments of unexpected clarity in the most ordinary places—like that
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The Light, the Wound, and the Story We Tell Ourselves
They say, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Rumi’s words echo through time, quoted endlessly, admired deeply. But have you ever paused to ask—why? Why the wound? Why not strength, or joy, or wholeness? And if it were true, wouldn’t suffering always make us wiser? Yet, it doesn’t—some wounds close over,
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Crimes of Consciousness
“Our knowledge of the world consists of systems of ideas that we construct in our imagination without being conscious of doing so. Some…” The sentence blurred as my eyelids grew heavy. Penn Handwerker’s The Origin of Cultures slid off my chest, its thesis about individual choices shaping society dissolving into the static of sleep. My